PROFILE of Classical Guitarist,
Akinobu-Jiro Matsuda

Jiro Matsuda was born in Himeji, Japan in 1933.
He started to play the guitar at the age of 14, seeking guidance
throughout Japan when and where he could find it.

1957

graduated at Kobe Univ., faculty of Economics. Awarded Music
Prize for Young guitarist, given by a monthly magazine "Guitar
Friend"

Andrés Segovia commended his playing, and in 1960 he
traveled to Europe where for two years he studied with Segovia
and Alirio Diaz in Siena, Italy, and in Santiago de Compostela
Spain. During this time he also studied with Mr. John Williams
in London recommended by Mr. Segovia.

1961

Awarded Papas-Puyana Prize at the International Guitar Competition
in Spain, under auspices of Andrés Segovia, sponsored
by the Conservatory of Music at Orense, Spain.

1962

Many concerts in the U.S. and appearances on TV and radio
broadcasts.

1963

Received the Japan Critic Club Prize of the year.

1964

He was invited again to the U.S. to give concerts. Made debut
appearances in Hong Kong and Singapore.

1969

Made debut concerts in Carnegie Recital Hall in New York and
in Wigmore Hall in London with great success.

"THE
NEW YORK TIMES" (1969)
Carnegie Recital HallPeter G. Davis.
MATSUDA, GUITARIST, DISPLAYS OWN STYLE
--------------------------------------------------------
Although Jiro Matsuda numbers such potent guitar personalties as Andres
Segovia, Alirio Diaz and John Williams among his mentors, he is nonetheless
very much his own man. This classical guitarist from Japan is an articulate
individualist, as his program last night in Carnegie Recital Hall demonstrated.
Even granting the reticent nature of his instrument, Mr. Matsuda's performances
were on an extremely intimate scale. In fact, during much of De Vise's
Suite in D minor and Bach's Third Suite (originally for cello), he seemed
to be playing for himself.
Yet within his rather rarefied sphere of reference, Mr. Matsuda commands
extraordinary subtle gradations on tonal coloring. The Bach especially
was shaded with a melting delicacy that ingeniously pointed up the structural
clarity and rhythmic design of each movement.
For a collection of genre pieces by Rodrigo, Villa-Lobos, Torroba and
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, Mr. Matsuda broadened his introspective approach
somewhat. Here, too, his playing was a model of taste and refinement.

Leaflet for Carnegie Recital Hall
Concert

"ARTS
GUARDIAN"(1973.1.25 Thursday)
WIGMORE HALL
Hugo Cole
Jiro Matsuda (Playing
Houser)
----------------------------------------------
"AT LAST we have a guitarist in Japan."
Segovia was referring to Jiro Matsuda who was at Wigmore Hall last night,
and who brought with him from Japan a typical Segovia programme, ranging
from sixteenth-century pavanes and Bach transcriptions to Ponce,Tansman,
Castelnuovo-Tedesco, names as well known to guitarists and their audiences
as those of Reubke and Rheinberger are to the organists. In these mysterious
closed worlds, to know how to write for the instrument is just as important
as to know what to write.
These specialist composers often seem to take no notice of what is going
on in the outside world. The last work in the programme, by E. Djemil,
prizewinner in a Paris guitar competition in 1968, was in the gentlest
neo-classical style, nearer to Grieg than Prokofiev.
Still one goes to guitar recitals to hear the instrument and the player,
and interest in the compositions in this case takes third place.
Jiro Matsuda is a technically excellent guitarist, his Bach transcriptions
were played with extraordinary fluency and smoothness (one of the strange
things about guitars is that one knows that the things that sound easiest
are often terribly difficult, while the most brilliant passages may be
Grade 1 material).
The Ponce Third Sonata takes itself rather seriously as music; but like
one of Henry Irving's great, but second-rate roles gives the player every
chance to display subtleties of inflexion and a great range of rhetorical
effects.
It also makes imaginative use of the different characters of bass and
treble registers; on what other instrument can changes of timbre be so
tellingly exploited?
Up to this point, Jiro Matsuda had struck me as more of a technician than
a poet, but his playing of the later Spanish or Spanish-style pieces was
free, expressive and entirely idiomatic.
As usual, it was the pieces with fewest pretentions to seriousness that
gave most delight both to me and to the rest of the audience. The pretty,
sad, Caprice, Complainte et Ronde, which won the Paris prize was agreeable
to hear once, but I doubt if it will stay in the repertoire with Bach,
Ponce, Tansman, and the rest.

1973

Undertook a concert tour in England and performed
also in Paris and Dublin. Made a recording for Argo Decca, London.
Invited as a solo player in Bergen Music Festival, Norway.

1974

Attended the Hong Kong Arts Festival as a solo Guitarist.

1976

Invited as stand in for Maestro Andrés Segovia during
the making of Christopher Nupen's famous film Andrés
Segovia: The Song of the Guitar, shot in the Palaces of the
Alhambra in Granada, Spain.

Prepareing for film shot
of Maestro Segovia

In the Palace of Alhambra

1979

Became an Honorary Board of Directors of International
Castelnuovo-Tedesco Society.

1982

Appeared as presenter in NHK television series "Let's
play guitar" (NHK is the national broadcasting network
of Japan).

1985

Gave world premiere of several pieces from "Capriccios
de Goya" by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco. Bestowed an award
of Cultural Services from his native city Himeji.

1989

He was charged as a jury for the 1st Andrés Segovia
International Competition held at El Escorial, Spain.

1990

Gave financial support to a project for the protection of
wild birds, giving a charity concert entitled "Save the
Bird Concert".

1992

Issued "Sound of the Guitar 2".

1995

Played "Platero and I" by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
based on poems by the Spanish Poet Juan Ramon Jimenez, to accompany
a shadow picture show by Japan's leading exponent of the art,
Seiji Hujisiro.

1996

A concert tour in Germany, in June to July.

2001

My essay "Guitar is an Orchestra of a Small PlanetΣ was
published.

2003

Issued "Sound of the Guitar 3" sub titled as "Guitar
is an Orchestra of a small Planet" recorded in France

After giving concert

in front of a church in France

A concert
at Yotsuya-ward Hall

2011 Issued in Japan C.D."Sound of the Guitar 5" Please refer to http://www.matsudaguitar.join-us.jp/html/CD.LP-on-sale.html
This is with a study-book (music sheet)